Technical and Social History of Software Engineering, CourseSmart eTextbook, The

Description

Pioneering software engineer Capers Jones has written the first and only definitive history of the entire software engineering industry. Drawing on his extraordinary vantage point as a leading practitioner for several decades, Jones reviews the entire history of IT and software engineering, assesses its impact on society, and previews its future. One decade at a time, Jones assesses emerging trends and companies, winners and losers, new technologies, methods, tools, languages, productivity/quality benchmarks, challenges, risks, professional societies, and more. He quantifies both beneficial and harmful software inventions; accurately estimates the size of both the US and global software industries; and takes on “unexplained mysteries” such as why and how programming languages gain and lose popularity.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Walker Royce vii

Foreword by Tony Salvaggio ix

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxvii

About the Author xxix

Chapter 1: Prelude: Computing from Ancient Times to the Modern Era 1

The Human Need to Compute 1

Early Sequence of Numerical Knowledge 3

Inventions for Improved Mathematics 8

Key Inventions Relevant to Software 21

The Impact of Software on People and Society 23

Summary 35

Chapter 2: 1930 to 1939: The Foundations of Digital Computing 37

The First Innovators of Modern Computing 37

Small Mathematical Applications 40

Summary 42

Chapter 3: 1940 to 1949: Computing During World War II and the Postwar Era 43